


the ghosts that broke my heart (before i met you)

by goldtreesilvertree



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Eiffel and Minkowski need so many hugs, Gen, Have some post-amnesia bonding, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Finale, wolf 359 secret santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 14:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13215654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldtreesilvertree/pseuds/goldtreesilvertree
Summary: Back on Earth, Doug Eiffel has a lot to catch up on. The beginning may not be the best place to start.





	the ghosts that broke my heart (before i met you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harpers_mirror (SapphireBryony)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireBryony/gifts).



> My contribution to the 2017 Wolf 359 Secret Santa for harpers-mirror!
> 
> Scraping in under the deadline, surprise! I’m your secret santa, and you asked for ‘anything Minffel’, so have some post-finale bonding. Hope it’s what you wanted!

He keeps listening to the tapes, trying to draw a line between whoever he is now and whoever Doug Eiffel was. It’s a slow process, like trying to play connect the dots when every dot is a needle in a haystack of pop-culture references, and there are _days_ of audio Hera can offer him. It’s like his former self could do anything with a recorder except find the off switch.

He’s not the only one who’s changed, though. He can’t match the Isabel who demands ‘family meals’ with the woman who threatened to blow up the station, or the Jacobi who was fanatically loyal to Kepler to the one who came home without him. Hera… in the early logs she’s perky and chirpy and spikey, but there’s a tiredness to her now, a vulnerability no longer guarded, and there’s always, _always_ the nagging sensation that he forgot to tell her something very important.

And then there’s Renée. Renée who is kind and patient even when she loses her temper, which isn’t often any more. Renée who matches up too well to the Lieutenant Commander Minkowski because when she’s worried about someone she snaps rather than soothes, because that’s who she is. And he knows whoever he was before doesn’t recognise this yet, that he’s working from a cheatsheet because he knows how the story ends ( _she gave up so much to try and save you, you gave up your memories for the chance to get her home_ ) and he can’t help but hate the man on the tapes for not seeing this for so long. They had years up there, orbiting that star, and he didn’t know for so long that she liked musicals, that she’d gotten married in Paris, that she’s never more authoritarian than when she’s afraid. That she _cares,_ so deeply and so fiercely and in a way that Goddard ignored right to the very end. And he knows these things now, he was practically _created_ knowing these things, but he didn’t before. He didn’t look for them before.

Now, though, he makes a study of getting it right. At not tripping over her name, at not rolling his eyes like a teenager when she tells him to do something, at being the friend she deserves. And it still isn’t enough. It still isn’t _right._

“What am I doing wrong?” he asks, one evening, when they’re sharing a room in a silence somewhere between awkward and companionable. Her head is bent over some of the endless mountain of paperwork required when three people come back from the dead, and he’s got his headphones plugged in but not playing one of the endless number of recordings Hera’s collected for him.

She looks up, the crease between her brows deepening. “Is this about the washing up? House rules, Doug, if I cook-“

“No. No, it’s not about that. It’s about- I keep making you sad.” And there it is again, that confused not-quite-grief that hangs in the air around her like ink in water.

“It isn’t you,” she says, a tired ache to her voice. “It’s- you’re so like- like you were, I forget sometimes. It’s like seeing a ghost. Or a memory.”

“I’m working on it!” There’s a defensive snap to his tone in spite of himself. “I’m listening to the stupid audio logs and they don’t even make _sense-_ “

“You don’t have to listen to them. That’s not- that’s not why you’re here.”

“I’m _here_ because he was your friend, and I can’t even do that right!” There is an awful silence, and she sits frozen for a moment, pinned in his glare like an insect on a board.

Quietly, she stands, moves over to the sofa, nudges him until there is enough space for her to curl up beside him, legs tucked under her so she can face him.

“You’re here because when the universe threw everything it had at you, you still tried to be a good person. If anyone deserves the chance to be a good person without that challenge, it’s you.” There is a softness to the lines of her face, to the grey in her hair that only appears in photos after they got back from space. He wonders how much of that grey is his former self’s fault, and feels guilt crash over him.

“Why are you being so _nice_ to me? I’m being a huge asshole. As always. Just… yell at me or something.”

She laughs then. “ _That’s_ what you miss? Of all the things to get out of those tapes…”

“I don’t miss it, it’s just _weird_ that you’re so patient all the time now when you weren’t before,” he argues, but she still looks amused.

“Maybe you’re picking up the wrong things from those tapes. We’ve all changed, Eiffel. Us in those recordings… they’re the real ghosts. We’re still alive. Maybe we should start acting like it?” It would have been a touching moment if she hadn’t stopped to yawn.

“Maybe in the morning,” he agrees, with a smile, and feels the reassuring weight of her head against his shoulder. For a little while, at least, there’s no space for ghosts.


End file.
